Sunday, February 02, 2014

Church of England's bishops defer same-sex marriage decision

With little more than two months to go before Britain’s first
same-sex marriage, the College of Bishops issued a statement saying that
“no change” to the Church of England’s teaching on marriage is proposed
or envisioned.

The statement came after an all-day meeting at Church House in
central London Monday (Jan. 27) attended by 90 bishops and eight women
participant observers.The aim of the meeting was to discuss the recommendations of the
Pilling Report on human sexuality that was published in 2013.

That
report was the result of a recommendation made by church leaders at the
end of the Lambeth Conference in 2008 that Anglicans should embark on a
discussion process to help heal the rift on the subject of full rights
for Christian homosexuals.

“The House of Bishops will be meeting again next month to consider
its approach when same sex marriage becomes lawful in England and
Wales,” the statement reads.

Polls here show 50 to 60 percent of the population in England and
Wales supports gay marriage.

The Scottish Parliament has approved in
principle legislation to introduce same-sex marriage.The bishops met in the shadow of the recent passage of anti-gay
legislation in African countries with two of that continent’s largest
Anglican churches — Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, with 169
million people, and Uganda.Most African countries have made homosexuality illegal, including countries that rely heavily on Western aid and tourists.Meanwhile, a column by The Guardian newspaper’s Andrew Brown said
Sunday that although there is a small but determined faction within the
Church of England that thinks same-sex marriages defy biblical
teachings, “there will be clergy queueing to marry their same-sex
partners when this becomes legal in April, when the question can no
longer be dodged.”